Violence, Part 1
Violence in Scripture
This essay was delivered at a theology conference at Wheaton College in 2013, later published in Christian Political Witness (IVP, 2014).
From beginning to end, the Bible is utterly opposed to violence.1 Scripture never commands or endorses violence, never permits violence, never allows for some minimal level of violence, never treats violence as a necessary evil. Biblical ethics and politics are nonviolent ethics and politics.
The God revealed in the Bible is utterly opposed to violence. He never commands or endorses violence, never allows a minimal level of violence, never treats violence as a necessary evil. The God of Israel never commits violence Himself, and violence (Heb., חמס) does not describe what God does, or commands, or is, or loves. Terence Fretheim claims to find exceptions. In Job 19:7, Job cries out against the “violence” done to him. He has just complied that Yahweh “has wronged me” and “closed his net around me”: (v. 6), so the charge of violence might be directed at Yahweh himself. Yet he also charges that his comforters have “tormented,” “crushed” and “wronged” him (vv. 2-3), so the charge might equally be directed at God. In the main, Job appeals to God to deliver him from the verbal assaults of his comforters. More importantly, it is important to note that this expresses Job’s perception of what God is doing to him, not necessarily what God is actually doing. The same goes for another of Fretheim’s examples, Jeremiah 20:8, though in my view Fretheim is wrong to suggest that this is an exception. Jeremiah complains that he wins only scorn and hostility by preaching a message of “violence and destruction,” but the violence is coming from Babylon not Yahweh. The only clear exception is Lamentations 2:6, where Jeremiah that Yahweh has done violence against his own meeting place and ended appointed feasts. New Testament uses of the Greek words for violence (βια, βιαζειν) are sparse. Jesus says that from the time of John on, the kingdom of God “suffers violence” or “moves forcefully” (Matthew 11:12; Luke 16:16), but if it is to be translated in the latter sense it is clearly used in metaphorically. In Acts, the apostles’ opponents sometimes threaten violence, but the apostles never act violently (Acts 5:26; 21:35; 24:7; 27:41).2
We may draw this conclusion: God hates (שׁנא) hands that shed innocent blood, hearts full of wicked schemes, feet that run to do evil, false witnesses, and those who spread strife among brothers (Proverbs 6:16-19). He hates the one who robes himself with violence (Malachi 2:16). “The one who loves violence, His soul hates” (Psalm 11:5). As far as I have been able to find, lovers of violence are the only thing God hates down to His “soul.”
These claims will come as a surprise to many, not all of them named Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, or Harris. Many Christians will be surprised, and that surprise is understandable. After all, the God of Israel regularly gives orders like: “You shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves” (Exodus 34:11-17). And the objects of destruction are not always inanimate. He tells Moses to smite (נכה) the Midianites (Numbers 25:17), and sends His people into the land to carry out חֶרֶם warfare: “You shall smite [the Canaanites], and utterly destroy them . . . You must destroy the peoples Yahweh your God gives over to you. Do not look on them with pity” (Deuteronomy 7:1, 16). Dutifully fulfilling everything Moses commands, Joshua “totally destroyed all that breathed [in Makkedah], just as Yahweh, the God of Israel, had commanded” (Joshua 10:40).3 Yahweh rewards Phinehas for impaling a fornicating couple in the camp of Israel (Numbers 25), and tears the kingdom from Saul for failing to carry out the ban against the Amalekites (1 Samuel 15).
The God who gives these instructions appears to be as savage as His people. He strikes (נכה, Genesis 8:21; Exodus 3:20; 12:12-13, 29) and smites. He wages war (לחם, Exodus 14:14; Deuteronomy 1:30), judges (שׁפט, Ezekiel 7:27), repays (שׁלם, Deuteronomy 7:10), punishes (פקד, 1 Samuel 15:2; Jeremiah 9:24; 44:13; Hosea 12:3), afflicts (1 Samuel 16:14; the NASB has “terrorize”), and avenges (עשה נקמה, Judges 11:36). He tramples the mighty, crushes young men, and treads Jerusalem like grapes in a wine press (רךך,שׁבר,סלה, Lamentations 1:15). He dashes to pieces (רעץ, Exodus 15:6), and “swallows” (בלע באפוֹ, Psalm 21:9) or “eats” (אכל, Numbers 16:35) His enemies in His fiery wrath. He spreads fear (נתן פחד, Deuteronomy 2:25), confusion, and panic (מהוּמַה, מבוּסה, מבוּכה, Isaiah 22:5). He destroys (מחה, Genesis 6:7; 7:4, 23; Exodus 17:14; שׁחת, Genesis 18:28; אבד, Deuteronomy 7:10), He kills (מוֹת, 1 Samuel 2:6).4 Yahweh not only commands חֶרֶם war. He is the chief חֶרֶם Warrior. He threatens “utterly to put out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven . . . Yahweh will have war with Amalek from generation to generation” (Exodus 17:8, 16), and He zealously exterminates Jewish “Canaanites” who have taken over the temple: “My eye will have no pity nor shall I spare; and though they cry in my ears with a loud voice, yet I shall not listen to them” (Ezekiel 8:16-18).
We cannot escape the discomfort of these texts with the Marcionite strategy of honing close to the New Testament, for the God of destructive wrath is the God and Father of Jesus. According to Paul, in the Old Testament God used to “wink” (υπεροραω; Acts 17:30) at ignorant idolatry and shown “forbearance” to sin (ανοχη; Romans 3:25). Only now is the wrath of God revealed from heaven against all the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men (Romans 1:18). As the Lamb, Jesus Himself bursts out in wrath to make the sky fall and mountains collapse, sending the survivors scurrying for cover (Revelation 6:12-17). The saints watch the spectacle not with horror but with praise. When the harlot city becomes infested with plagues, pestilence, famine, and is burned with fire, a great multitude in heaven greets the event with, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God because His judgments are true and righteous, for He has judged the great harlot. . . . Hallelujah! Her smoke rises forever and ever” (Revelation 19:1-3).
In sum: The God who hates those who love violence orders His people to destroy altars and shrines. The God who hates those who cover themselves with violence prohibits Israel from showing pity to Canaanites. The God who hates violence judges the harlot city so that her smoke rises forever, and the saints in heaven rejoice. We are left with an existential tension if not a conceptual contradiction, for which there are several possible explanations: The Bible is internally incoherent, or home to incommensurate theologies, or its understanding of “violence” is more specifically defined than current usage.5 I believe the latter is the case, and I wish to explore the biblical usage in order to discover a baseline for rethinking our theology of violence.